The
following was written by one of our members - Martin Henegan in response
to an e-mail question from a 007 fan.

When
we first heard that we were to be used in the film there was natural
scepticism that this was a one of those 'wild rumours' that was being
put about by some unscrupulous person. Then, when it became clear that
it was true, there was great excitement at the prospect that we
would have a visit from Sean Connery and a bevy of voluptuous 'Bond
girls'. Added to this was the rumour that many of the ship's company
would be required as film extras and that they would be earning 'big
bucks'.

When
the advance party of the film production crew arrived we were in Gibraltar
after a period of operation in the western Mediterranean. The
film people set the scenario for the part of the film they wished to
shoot! They said the ship was meant to be in Hong Kong harbour
in the summertime whereas in reality we shot the scenes off the North
Africa coast in the wintertime!

There
had been an unholy scramble from ships company members to be on the
list of film extras that would be required for the burial party in the
scene. When it was realised that the location was meant to be Hong Kong,
this caused a minor problem because the crew would have to be dressed
in Topical 'white rig' and as it was wintertime, very few people had
tropical clothing in their kit lockers on board. The prospect of earning
much needed extra cash stimulated much guile and zealous (sometimes
underhand) plots to find tropical gear that could be worn. (Talk about
beg, borrow or steal!)

By
the time it came to the day of the filming we were aware that Sean Connery
and his bevy of beauties would not be descending onto our grey steel
vessel filled with 250 men so you can imagine the disappointment. In
fact there was only one actor,(unheard of before or since) who would
play the part of the Captain reading the burial service address.

The
'burial at sea' scenes did not run smoothly. The 'body was not properly
weighted so that when it slipped into the water it disappeared beneath
the waves only to pop up again a minute later with the feet sticking
out into the air. I don't recall the gunfire incident but could well
imagine the need to sink the object as it floated away otherwise a passing
fishing vessel or other ship would have been slightly worried if they
came across a 'dead body' floating in the water.

There
followed a hasty redesign of the body bag and copious additional weights
were added to ensure it did the decent thing and 'sink' at the appropriate
time. Lots of trials were carried out with the body on the end of a
length of rope so that it could be hauled back on board if it refused
to behave, plus as there was not an inexhaustable supply of 'bodies'
it was required to make the trip to Davy Jones's locker quite a few
times!

The
film crew shot the scene from all different angles and were themselves
being filmed by the many members of the ship's crew who were overlooking
the quarter-deck area. The actual filming took a day and a half for
what eventually lasts for about 30 seconds in the film.

The
'extras' were to disappointed as the mega bucks did not arrive and instead
the film company sent crates of beer to all the messdecks as a token
of thanks for the disruption they had caused. As you can imagine, this
was for the majority of us was no trouble at all, however, the 'film
extras' were a bit peeved as they had mortgaged their rum rations and
hard cash to get the tropical rig only to find that they had made a
bad investment.

As
you may be aware HMS Tenby no longer exists as a physical ship, however,
she still 'lives on' as an integral part of the lives of those who sailed
on her. At the time we did not see her as anything special but the reality
is that it is the men and characters with whom we served on the ship
that make it what it is in our memories. All of us have an abiding
memory of what was our life and home for so many years and the fleeting
glimpse of our ship at the start of the film is always a treasured moment.